I'll Protect You
by Wildwolf
Summary: A lil bit of fluff, I think. Ano, no REAL shounen ai, but if there is, it's Seto/Ryou. Takes place between the battles of Rashid vs. Jou and Malik vs. Mai on Battle Ship. Seto visits Ryou in his room (Ryou is unconscious). SPOILERS!


**I'll Protect You**

Genre: General, a lil one-sided romance?

Pairing: I guess Seto/Ryou, but I'm not sure. If there us shounen ai, it's very mild.

Rating: PG

Plot: Takes place during the Battle Ship finals for Battle City... some time after Yami no Bakura loses to Yami no Yuugi. Seto- to make sure a certain white-haired bishounen doesn't die and he doesn't get sued- visits Ryou in his room. But what if events make him stay and learn more about the unconscious boy? Seto's POV!

Warnings: Spoilers! OOC! Maybe some shounen ai! Holes in the related-to-anime plot! After all, my episodes are being borrowed now... Here's the sequence:

V-chan: Wildwolf-chan! I have your DVD! **hands it back**

Me: -^_^- Yay! **hands it to Ka-chan**

Ka-chan: -^_^-

V-chan: 0.0

I had a master key to all of the rooms. This made me feel very powerful, seeing as I could easily slip into each of the people's rooms and find out all of their secrets and get very good blackmail information. But despite what some people may think of me, I'm not one to go and do something like that. I don't need underhanded tactics to beat people- I'd show them all with this tournament.

When I won all of the God Cards, I would be invincible. I have Obelisk, Yuugi has Osiris, and Malik has Ra.

Jounouchi just won his battle against "Malik", who was really a man named Rashid. This same man was now being looked at by paramedics. About fifteen minutes of the twenty before the third battle were left. The only contestants who hadn't battled were me, the real Malik, Kujaku Mai, and the last-minute eighth Duelist who hadn't the respect enough to show up for the previous drawings.

I slipped the cardkey through the keypad for room number six, where Bakura Ryou was. The door slid open silently and I entered the dimly-lit room. The lights had been turned down to allow the boy to sleep.

No one except he and I were in the room. For the best, now that I think of it.

Don't take this the wrong way, I don't really care about him, I just want to know that I'm not going to come home to a lawsuit after this is over. There was already enough paperwork as it was.

I sat down in the bedside chair and looked him over. His breath was coming out feebly, in a gasping way. It reminded me of the time when Mokuba had a really high temperature while he had the flu once.

Just to rid my conscious of this disconcerting memory, I touched his forehead absentmindedly with the back of my hand. The gasping quieted a little, but his eyes stayed closed. To my own subconscious relief, he wasn't burning up. But he was freezing cold. His skin was clammy and cold sweat caked his bangs to his forehead. Well, judging from what the hell he was wearing, it was to be expected.

I saw some red on the bandage on his arm, meaning blood was leaking through. I stood and walked over to a counter where some medical supplies had been left. I took out some bandages and wetted a cloth. Thinking it over, I also supplied myself with some rubbing alcohol and scissors.

Sitting back down, I set the things down on the bedside table and turned him on his side, his back facing me, so that I could easily change the bandage. I may have done so a little roughly, seeing as he moaned in complaint... almost like whenever Mokuba doesn't want to wake up in the mornings and just throws the covers over himself.

Using scissors, I cut the bandage and used a little of the clean parts to wipe up some of the free-flowing blood. Don't get me wrong, I'm just trying to make sure no infection sets in, therefore decreasing chances of survival and increasing chances of someone suing me and Yuugi-tachi being very cross. The former happened to make me more nervous than the latter, thank you very much.

Seeing the cut, I begin to wonder why he came to this if he sported it. It looked deep, as if cut by a knife, and where an artery would be too. He wasn't attacked, because there were no self-defense wounds or anything. Could he have put them on himself in attempts of self-mutilation?

Bad flashbacks ran through my mind of several times where I've done such things to myself. I used to sport cuts like this that never scarred. I pushed these particular memories out of mind as I wetted the cloth a little more with the alcohol. The water already on the cloth would dilute the alcohol just enough so that it wouldn't wake him.

But this was one of Yuugi's cheery friends; why would he seemingly try to kill himself, or at least push himself to the brink of death?

Maybe it was...

I had yet another flashback, this time of a fight less than an hour ago. This... this boy seemed to change from a malicious and powerful Duelist who had mastered the okaruto [1] deck to... the weak and delicate person lying in front of me.

I dabbed the alcohol cloth on his cut and heard a gasp of pain leave his throat. I've given up on thinking about my actions while I search for the answers in all the knowledge I already have.

"Sh..." I whisper. Don't get me wrong, but I just never liked hearing people cry out in pain. Humiliation and defeat, sure. But not pain... not since that bastard Gozaburo. All because his son died and he needed a new heir[2]...

I digress.

I continue cleaning the wound off and his gasping has started back up again, articulated with sharp whimpers once in a while. The wound must be very deep.

But then that man Rashid came up and used that item... the rod that looked the Yuugi's Puzzle that contained the spirit of the pharaoh. And suddenly this person was back again and Rashid told Yuugi that if he attacked Bakura, the boy would die.

Of course, I don't believe in magic, so it didn't occur to me that the mentality set forth from these mystical, and I must admit obviously magical, items may have indeed killed him, if a combination of the cold and knife wound didn't first.

"Reckless." I muttered, putting the cloth down. I looked at the accused reckless one's face. He... he looked almost like Mokuba when he slept. Just as youthful almost, certainly not the person who had been dueling.

And now I subconsciously am scolding myself about telling Yuugi to go ahead and attack. I'm not quite sure why, but I am. Bakura had been sitting there, huddled and weak, begging both verbally and in body language for help. I used to look like that, when the beatings had first started. And Mokuba would do that to, all the way up until I killed Gozaburo.

But then the Ring that he wore around his neck had glowed and suddenly, Bakura had stood up. He seemed to have changed back into the sadist he had been. He yelled to Yuugi to go ahead and attack. What had happened?

And where was that Ring now?

Something is going on here, I know it. It has to do with those three items... and the one Pegasus had. And the one that woman Isis used to show me that scene of ancient Egypt. And the Kami no Cards [3] were tied into it.

Chotto matte...

When Mokuba and I were on the helicopter with Yuugi, flying to the harbor for that one duel with the anchors, he told us that he was a spirit inhabiting Yuugi's body through the puzzle.[4] Could it be the same thing for Bakura?

I finished the bandage and he automatically flipped back onto his back and cuddled into the blankets. It was as if he was awake and had known I had completed my task.

"Bakura Ryou." I whispered in a contemplative voice. "What is it about you?"

It all but surprised me when he opened his mouth and started to speak. "Yami..." He shakily whispered. "Gomen nasai. I didn't mean to lose. It's my fault..."

I wondered who he was talking to, and for a few moments if I should wake him up. But entrancement set in and I couldn't tear my eyes away.

"Sennen Ring... doko? Samui... samui..." He shivered to emphasize his words. But then he started reaching his good hand up to his chest and made a failed effort to do so with his left. As if searching for the missing Ring, he started to almost claw for it, tussling the sheets around in a frantic search. Tears started coming down from his eyes.

"Yamete!" I grabbed his hand away from his body, lest he injure himself further. That certainly would not look good in the newspapers! Local boy kills himself while having a nightmare aboard Kaiba Corp. blimp!

His attempts stopped and his breathing became slower, seeing as it had picked up prior to. "Dare...?" He whispered. I could feel his fingers tightening their grip on my hand, and yet it was still very weak... deathly weak. "Kawai yo... taskete. Taskete."

I returned the grip slightly and his whispering stopped. His hands had been colder than mine due to his antics, but now they were warming up.

"Bakura Ryou, who are you inside?" I felt as if... as if I wanted to protect him from his inner fears, and yet couldn't even bring myself to do even that. "I'll protect you, daijoubu."

His breathing soothed down with my words as he returned to a normal sleeping state and his hands felt limp in mine. I set it down and looked him over once more. I knew my time was running out but...

I reached out a hand and used my index finger to wipe away a stray tear. I also jumped in surprise when he leaned into it, but then remembered from all my psychology readings that people tended to do that, no matter who touched them while they were in this state of unconsciousness.

But yet it still felt kind of good...

I removed my finger and looked at the tear, wondering if it could tell me what all was going on with him. It was smeared, so it was very quick to evaporate.

"All Duelists please report to the lobby area." The intercom announced. I cursed it now. I had run out of time.

I turned to leave the room; but as I did, I looked back. "Sarebada, Bakura Ryou."

Notes and Translations:

[1] Okaruto deck- occult-themed deck. It was funny when Ryou told Jounouchi that his deck was occult-themed (like Ghost's/Bonez's, but worse and scarier... T_T the stuff Cason-sensei would have wanted me to do for surrealism! I swear, it reminds me of Dante's hell!) with a perfectly cheery and happy Ryou-like voice. Jounouchi started praying to himself that he never had to duel Ryou.

[2] I thank PM-chan for this info: Kaiba Gozaburo had a son named Noa/Noah who died, incidentally. He saved his memory... somehow or other (you see this person in DVD 10, I think) and he looks a lot like 1st series Seto with the green hair and all. But I guess after Noa (however you spell it!) died, Gozaburo needed a new son, went to the orphanage, and you know history, right?

[3] Kami no Cards- God's Cards or Cards of God. The God Cards, in other words. What the hell did they do to Osiris? Slyphys or something like that? They left Ra and Obelisk an almost-tolerable rate unchanged (Obelisk the Tormentor...?) and they left them called Egyptian God Cards, which left me really surprised...

[4] The Death Anchor Match. The look on Mokuba and Seto's faces when Yami no Yuugi told them that he was actually a spirit of a pharaoh that lived in a puzzle and was borrowing Yuugi's body... that was priceless! Seto with wide, surprised eyes! Hah!

Chotto matte- Wait a moment

Doko- Where, basically

Samui- Cold

Yamete- Stop

Dare- Who is it, or just who

Kawai yo- I'm scared ((I can say this in Ryou-chan's Japanese voice... hee-hee...))

Taskete- Help or help me

Sarebada- Basically another way of 'see you later'


End file.
